


It Started In An Alley

by Entity_Sylvir



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (in flashback), Credence isn't a virgin, First Times, M/M, Post-Movie, not even close
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 06:43:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10077893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entity_Sylvir/pseuds/Entity_Sylvir
Summary: “I know what this is, and I know what I want.” His lips are moist and red, and with a quirk to them too. A subtle twist going with something in his eyes that threatens to look like amusement. “And, you know, this is usually when they stop talking and give it to me.”Credence got his practice sneaking away from his duties, lying to Ma, coming home late from meeting men long before Mister Graves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Possible underage (age 17), 16 is the age of consent where I'm from.
> 
> Many thanks to [sherlocks-freebitch](http://sherlocks-freebitch.tumblr.com/) ([darkpriestess](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darkpriestess/pseuds/darkpriestess/)) for the help and cheerleading.

Percival Graves is a man who values responsibility.

It’s why he’d fought to take the boy in after the near-disaster in the subway, knowing that any actions performed by a man with his face were not his guilt to bear but also knowing that no one else would be bearing it if he didn’t. The Goldstein sisters had tried first, but with the lingeringly complications of the incident involving Scamander and the no-maj it had been clear that the only person who had enough authority—and subtle sense of obligation from congress—to have a real hope of successfully receiving custody of a former obscurial with current unknown nature was the newly-rescued director. Responsibility is what he holds to steadily in his mind as he pulls his focus into both teaching Credence control of the magic that is his right and showing him the decency that is anyone’s right, through their evenings of quiet companionship, including ones when the immovable stain left by his own time with Grindelwald makes him immeasurably grateful for the boy’s presence in a way he can’t articulate. It’s certainly what he tells himself the day he manages to coax out another of those more and more frequent smiles and is hit with a sudden surge in his chest of _‘my god, you’re beautiful’._

It starts gradually. Looks that turn into gazes that begin to look like suggestions, touches that start as comfort and linger into something that makes him sick at himself when he considers because, dear Morrigan, he knows, _knows,_ he can’t do this. Can’t twist this gentle thing between them into his own vulgarity. Can’t take advantage of the boy who doesn’t understand what he’s offering, who’s confused with gratitude for the first person to show him affection, who deserves so much more than people expecting something in exchange for kindness.

Percival Graves, however, is also not made of stone.

He’s sitting on the edge of his bed half-undressed for the night when the bedroom door opens without a knock. He stares a moment, unexpectedly self-conscious about his bare chest, opens his mouth and gets out, “Wh—” before Credence crosses the distance in three strides and kisses him.

In the second it takes him to process the shock there’s a firm palm coming down to rest against his chest and fingers trailing across his jaw. When he moves to pull away they slide around to the back of his neck, just resting, not pressing or pushing yet somehow leaving him utterly helpless to resist. Every protest, every reason he’s told himself swirls in his mind and under his tongue, but then there’s a warm wetness pressing forward into his mouth, stroking against said tongue and he can feel his self-control wavering like a failing protego.

Percival lets himself fall back against the mattress, pulling the boy on top of him and deepening the kiss with a groan. It’s Credence who breaks off first, leaving his mouth to move down his neck, and Percival gasps and takes the freedom to say, “Credence, are you sure—”

“Yes,” Credence breathes back without looking up, words a moist puff of air against dampened skin.

Percival gulps, pushing against the lips inching down his throat. “Credence, you know you don’t owe me anything—”

“I know.”

A hand slides easily down to the front of his sleep pants, pushing aside the loose elastic. He gulps again.

“Really, I don’t want you to feel like this is something you have to—”

“I don’t.”

“But—”

A huff, this time to cut him off. Credence pulls back finally, looking up with a funny sort of sound from the back of his throat. The short bit that there is of it, it almost sounds like exasperation.

“I’m sure, Percival,” he says, soft and clear. “I know what this is, and I know what I want.” His lips are moist and red, and with a quirk to them too. A subtle twist going with something in his eyes that threatens to look like amusement. “And, you know, this is usually when they stop talking and give it to me.”

Then there’s a mouth again trailing down the length of his chest, beating out any further protest to the newly bared skin past his hips, and leaving Percival only half a mind for his next spinning thought of:

_‘Wait, what?’_

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

Credence is fifteen the first time he kisses a boy.

It’s one of the street children that Ma points to when she reminds them how lucky they are to have her and the church and food every day. He comes to the front of the soup line after finishing his own portion and requests in a firm voice that he be given some more to take back for his sister, who’s sick and can’t walk over. Ma replies equally firmly that no, he can’t take a bowl, and if she wants some she’ll have to come herself.

Credence is eating his own lunch when he hears, two hunks of bread and a hard block of cheese. Ma is right, of course, the boy couldn’t possibly carry one of their bowls out of the dining hall, but he can’t help watching as the boy drops his head and slinks away. Chastity is helping ladle the soup, neither she nor Ma watching him, so he swallows his dry mouthful with a little effort and mumbles something quick to Modesty before hurrying through the kitchen to the back door.

By the time he gets around to the front, the boy is almost out of sight and Credence has to push through the crowd to follow, still clutching the rest of his food in one hand. He tries to call out but his words are lost in the bustle of people, all briskly walking by, none paying attention to the likes of him. When he finally catches up the boy has lead them a few blocks away down a narrow alley where Credence sees him drop to his knees beside a pile of make-shift blankets that appear to consist of filthy discarded clothing.

“Um, hi,” Credence says as he walks up. Both the boy and the pale little girl whom Credence can now see nestled in the pile look up in wary surprise. He awkwardly holds out the hand holding one of the pieces of bread and the cheese, and they stare at it like they’ve never seen such a thing before.

“Ma says you can’t take the soup,” he continues, “but—”

Apparently realising suddenly what he means, the girl darts a skinny arm out before he has chance to finish and snatches the bread from his hand as if she’s afraid he’s going to take it away again. Credence blinks as the cheese falls to the ground, and leans down to pick it up as the girl tears into the bread with her teeth without a word. He gives it a quick wipe with his fingers before handing it over to her as well.

“Thank you,” the boy says softly as his sister finishes off the food. Credence nods, pauses a second, then turns around and walks away.

Over the next couple of weeks he goes back to them when he can, with whatever little bits of food he manages to save. He and his sisters don’t have as much free time anymore as they used to, with Ma starting to get more serious with the New Salem meetings of the Philanthropic Society, but he steals moments here and there between errands and chores. He’s pretty sure Modesty sees him coming and going, but she never asks or seems to give a care.

The girl stays quiet, weak, but the boy asks him things. About the kitchen, about Ma and Chasity and Modesty, even about him. Credence doesn’t usually talk much with people outside of the things he does for Ma, but sometimes he stays and talks to the boy. And sometimes he stays longer than he’d intended.

The last time is the one when Ma is waiting for him when he gets back, hands on her hips and jaw tight in anger.

“Where have you been?”

He tells her. He tells her the truth, because he hasn’t yet learned to lie. And then she holds out her hand, and he unbuckles his belt.

That night, he lies on his side and knows it’s not his stinging back that stops him from sleeping because he doesn’t think he regrets it, even though he disobeyed Ma. He disobeyed Ma and he knows why she was angry but he doesn’t think he did it because he was bad.

The day after, he’s serving the soup when he sees the boy join the line. A moment later his sister follows, small and smudged with dirt but on her feet, and Credence feels a smile stretch his face.

“Stop laughing, silly boy, get on with it.”

Credence jumps at Ma’s words, spilling a bit of the lukewarm soup out of the bowl in his hand. Ma’s eyes narrow, her hard glare promising they’ll be addressing this again later, and he hunches his shoulders and ducks his head as he continues his ladling.

A few minutes later it’s them at the line in front of him, and even though Credence doesn’t look up he hears a whispered, “Meet me at the back."

He draws in a sharp breath, but before he has a chance to say that he can’t the boy has already moved away. He spends the rest of the pot gnawing his lower lip, torn with indecision, before he finally makes up his mind and turns before he can change it again.

He tells Ma without looking her in the face that he’s going to go wash the pot, and slips away into the kitchen. There, he places it down on the benchtop and goes on to the back door.

The boy is waiting for him, like he said he would be. Credence doesn’t step out, just stands in the doorway and says, “I can’t—”

“I know.” The boy takes a few steps forward, hands twisting together in front of him. “I just wanted to say thank you. Again.”

Credence isn’t used to being thanked this much. He blinks. “That’s okay.”

The boy grins, wide and bright. And then abruptly he takes the last few steps forward and kisses Credence on the mouth, before turning around and hurrying away.

Credence stares frozen in shock for several long seconds, longer than he can afford. He waits for the shame, the disgust to crash down over him, because he knows exactly what the Bible says. _Sodomy_. _Perversion_. It’s not one of the things Ma talks about much, because it’s too filthy a thing even to articulate in polite company.

Ma. Ma would be furious, but not just that. Horrified.

The shame doesn’t come. Instead, somehow, unbidden, he smiles. Just a little, and lifts a fingertip to rub across his lower lip.

He scrubs the pot fast, and returns from the kitchen without arousing suspicion. The girl is still there, just finishing up, and she flicks her hand up in a quick little wave to him before she steps out through the front door. Her name was Ruthie.

His name was Roy. And after that, Credence learns to lie.  
  


—  
  


Credence is seventeen the first time he kisses a man.

Ma has been getting more insistent about spreading the word, turning their leaflet-distribution into a regular duty. It starts off passable, for a winter’s day, but an icy wind picks up in the mid-afternoon that leaves Credence trying to ignore his own shivering as he stands on the sidewalk with his hand outstretched. The fingers wrapped around the crinkling paper he’s trying to hold out toward the passers-by have already gone numb.

“You okay there?”

It takes him a moment to realise the words are directed at him. He turns in surprise to see a man leaning out through the doorway of the shop behind him, a slight frown on his face as he takes in Credence’s too-thin coat and the stack of leaflets under his arm. Credence nods automatically, without speaking, and holds his hand out again.

“Will you take…” he trails off, clenching his jaw when his teeth threaten to chatter.

The man takes it, reading over the lurid words of the title without expression. Credence wonders if he’ll scoff, roll his eyes and mutter something biting like a lot of them do but that’s okay as long as they take it, take a look, don’t give it back. But he only twitches his eyebrows a little, then slips it into the pocket of his basic but well-cut suit and looks back up at Credence.

“Do you want to come in?” he asks with a tip of his head toward the direction of the shop interior. “You can keep giving them out inside.”

Credence stares. Air wafts out from the open door, warm and inviting. He mumbles, “Thanks.”

It’s a card shop, smelling softly of dusty paper and glue. There’s a fire burning in a grate on one wall, and the man invites Credence to sit on a chair beside it while he takes his own seat behind the counter. The heat of the flames is an almost painful shock to his chilled skin and he huddles down on the wooden seat, drawing his knees high and wrapping his arms around his legs.

He finds himself uncurling over the next couple of hours, bit by bit. A handful of customers come and go though there aren’t a lot of people out in this weather, he actually manages to give out a few leaflets too. And in between, the man talks to him. First vague small talk about the cold, the traffic, the most recent news headlines, and then little stories and light-hearted anecdotes of his own. The man laughs a lot, Credence doesn’t much join him but he finds he likes hearing it.

When afternoon turns to evening, the man rises and moves to the door to close the shop. He walks back over to the fireplace to extinguish it, standing close enough that Credence can see the light blond of his stubble starting to grow in. He’s not that old for all he’s well put together, sleek-haired and broad shouldered. He turns to Credence after and asks, “Warmed up?”

Credence nods, flexing his still pale fingers. The man’s gaze follows the movement and a moment later so does his hand. Credence starts a little as warm fingers close around his, thumb swiping over his knuckles before the man lets out a soft sound of discontent.

“You’re still cold.”

He takes Credence’s hand in both of his own without waiting for a reply, rubbing briskly and firmly over the long digits. Credence lets out a quiet gasp, both at the sensation and the shock. The man stills when he’s done, with that hand and also the other, but doesn’t let them go.

“Do you,” he says when he speaks again, and suddenly his voice is low enough to send a shiver down Credence’s spine in a way he doesn’t even quite understand, “do you have to get back straight away?”

It’s barely sunset. Ma said not to come back until he’s handed out everything he’d been given, it’s a cold day and she’d know less people would be out accepting them. Credence raises his head, something he doesn’t do often nowadays, and looks the man in the face. “No.”

The man smiles, half pleased, half a twist of something else. He moves slowly, plenty of time to brush off and feign ignorance, plenty of time to say no. Credence doesn’t.

He lets the man press him against the wall of the closed shop, beside the dying wisps of the fire and surrounded by the smell of paper. Parts his lips for a coaxing tongue, tentatively winds his own arms around the firm male body against his. Gasps into the kiss as he feels wandering hands stroke down his body, slipping under his clothes, and has that gasp lost between their insistent mouths. 

Credence learns what pleasure is that day, the heady joy of another person’s touch which goes so far beyond the vague and dire warnings against indulgence and sin that he’s known it as thus far.

“Why don’t you leave those with me?” the man says after, eyes still dark and breath still short, so unexpectedly that Credence doesn’t yet have the presence of mind to reply with anything but a wordless noise of puzzlement.

The man inclines his head downwards, and Credence realises he’s indicating to the remaining leaflets now scattered on the ground where they’d been dropped from his hand.

“Leave them here, I’ll keep handing them out.”

“Right.” Credence nods. “Thanks.”

“Or,” a smile, quickly curving into sly, “you can come back and pick them up tomorrow.”

He does. And several times more before Ma slaps him for wasting his time on the same part of town and sends him elsewhere. The man who invited him out of the cold teaches him to use his hand and his mouth, and to know the raw, savage delight of receiving in turn.

His name was Don. And one evening, after he closes the shop early, he also shows Credence the streets he can go to meet someone else.  
 

—  
  


Credence is eighteen the first time he lets a man take him.

He slips out one night when feels too restless to sleep, sneaking past Modesty and Chastity’s cots and holding his breath as he crosses the corridor in front of Ma’s closed door. If anyone notices him missing, he’ll tell them it was too hot and that he went for a walk. Ma probably won’t believe him, but she won’t be able to think of anything else he could be doing. It is a very warm night.

He goes to one of the establishments that he’s starting to know. He doesn’t go out too often, just the days when he finds Ma’s talk of witches and sinners and hellfire starting to blur into a cloying swirl inside his mind. He tries to listen and pay attention, he really does, and most of the time he actually manages it too. Except, it all sounds a little different these days to when he’d been a child sitting across the table with his head solemnly bowed to Ma’s wisdom. There’s times now when words still fall true in his mind, learnt and understood—and then simply stay. There, in his mind. Somewhere away from his heart. He doesn’t doubt, exactly, or question. Just has taught himself somehow to take acceptance in a way that doesn’t always feel like faith.

Credence knows he’s not a lot to look at, but he’s been told that there’s something about him that draws the eye. In the nervous way his tongue darts over his lips maybe, or the way he lets his gaze linger wide-eyed until he’s caught and glances hastily away. Some men like the shy boy.

Tonight, the one who offers to buy him a drink is one of the older gentlemen, distinguishedly handsome and neatly though somewhat plainly dressed. Credence doesn’t drink, that surely couldn’t go noticed back at the church and he doesn’t much like the taste anyhow. So he turns it down and says that he’d rather just get out of here. The older man blinks at his boldness, then grins.

Credence is almost taken aback when their destination isn’t the alley at the back, or the secluded park down the road. Instead, it’s a boarding house, the kind where everyone minds their own business and no one need draw any opinion on anyone else. It’s the first time someone has brought him inside.

The older man is gentle as they tangle together on the bed, narrow but softer than Credence has ever felt before. His voice is rough and low against Credence’s ear as he asks if he can have him, and Credence breathes back a ‘yes’ before he’s even fully processed the hot shiver of desire that stabs through him at the words.  The older man rolls Credence onto his stomach and urges him to raise his knees under his hips, opens him up with slick fingers that are firm but not forceful. The sensation is mostly just strange at first, truthfully, but with a shocking intimacy that has him biting at his lips as he rests his cheek over his bent forearms.

He gasps at the first push, pressure that blooms in a heartbeat to keen, radiating pain. He can bear hurt. Is well practised at it by now, even, but this doesn’t feel like something that has to be borne. Not with the soothing hand rubbing across his lower back, and murmured words of apology drifting to his ears.

The older man stills for a long, draw-out moment, until Credence realises that he’s waiting for an assent to go on. He inhales deeply, breathing through the stretch of his body until it ebbs into acceptance, and gives it in a breathy murmur. The older man continues slowly, giving patient time to adjust and adapt to the initial breach before beginning to hasten.

Pleasure seeps gradually into the odd fullness, almost unexpected twists and jolts that build steadily before cresting in a sharp burst when the older man leans further forward and shifts the angle of his hips. Credence lets out a shout before he can stop himself and muffles it into the back of his hand as soon as he does, habit from encounters in backstreets and shadowed copses. It’s met with a breathy chuckle and fingers trailing down his face, lightly urging him to turn his head to the side and away.

“Let me hear you, sweetheart.”

He does.

The older man comes with a warm spurt and a low, guttural groan. He pulls out and flips Credence onto his back in a smooth motion before reaching down to work him with both hands, one wrapping around and the other sliding two fingers back inside. Credence comes hard enough that his cry rings clear through the small room.

He cleans up in the adjacent washroom after, leaving the older man reclined contentedly on the bed. He can feel the hot crawl of a wandering gaze over his body as he steps back out to redress with legs still just a little shaky.

“You can stay, if you’d like,” the older man says. “No one will ask questions."

Credence shakes his head. “I have to get back.” He hesitates a moment, then walks briskly back to the bed and presses a quick kiss to the older man’s lips. “But, thank you.”

The church is dark and silence when he lets himself back in. Credence slips into his night-clothes and into bed as unnoticed as he’d left, linger memories tingling over his skin. Tomorrow will be exhausting no doubt, with chores and duties and possible punishments—though not for this. For now, he sleeps well.

His name was Harrison. Credence never sees him again, but he thinks about him sometimes in the nights quiet enough for him to sneak a hand down to himself.  
  


— 

  
Credence is nineteen the first time he meets another man who doesn’t believe. Not always. Not everything.

Ma has meetings with other important people these days between the meetings with the public. Leaders of churches, or other societies around the city, trying to make connections to spread her own cause. She likes Credence and the girls to accompany her, show off the orphans she’s taken in and the family that works together in their venture. They don’t need to talk.

This one is a fairly well to do church in another part of town, with a dedicated reverend and his brother who also runs a system accepting donations of old clothes and blankets for the poor. Credence stands in the back of the church office beside Chastity and lets Ma’s familiar words about truth and danger wash over him. The reverend is a stern but kind-looking man, his brother younger and shrewd. Credence doesn’t meet either of their eyes.

The meeting seems to go well, and a few days later Ma gives him a sheaf of papers and an address.

“They asked for more about us. _Don’t_ mess it up.”

It’s a long walk, with no money for the cab that Ma had paid for last time for the four of them. But the weather is pleasant, and Credence makes it briskly with the papers tucked securely under one arm and a worn and frequently-opened map under the other. He finds the address to be an apartment a couple blocks away from the church they’d visited previously.

The reverend’s brother answers the door, and flashes Credence a smile before inviting him in. He makes idle, one-sided conversation as he takes the papers and gives them a quick peruse, apparently the reverend himself keeps a smaller apartment closer to the church and their donations are up for the season and he hopes the Barebones’ are too. Credence listens politely, waits for the other man to finish before beginning his own, well-taught speech about the Second Salemers.

As he finishes listing how many children their kitchen feeds each week and the numbers of people who come to their meetings, the other man stands up from the couch he’d seated himself on. He turns as he asks if Credence would like to take a seat and have a drink, towards the half of the living area that serves as a modest kitchen. Credence looks up a little further in surprise at the invitation, then shakes his head even though the other man has his back to him.

“No, thank you, I should be getting back.”

In the few moments it takes for him to give a small, curt nod and step back out of the cosy apartment, Credence sees the other man pause and turn again out of the corner of his eye. He only briefly glimpses the look that follows him the handful of steps before he disappears out of view.

Only few more days pass before Ma sends him back, this time with a cardboard box packed with leaflets.

“He asked for you,” she informs, tone curt but with enough of a lilt that expresses some degree of incomprehension of why he’d do such a thing. “Said he had some affairs he requires assistance with and would organise to have our leaflets distributed at the next service. Make yourself useful, apparently you seemed like a sharp-enough boy. Be home for supper if you want any.”

The box isn’t too heavy, but it’s large and awkward to carry and Credence has to stop every few blocks to readjust his hold. By the time he finally arrives at the apartment building he’s afraid he’s late, but there’s no reproach or reprimand greeting him when the door swings open at his touch. The other man takes one look and hastily takes the box off his hands. Credence holds back a sigh of relief, gingerly lowering his arms and stretching out the prodding ache tingling down his muscles.

The other man sets the box down on a low table and opens up the top to pull out a leaflet. He’s seen them before, surely, but still spends a long while reading it over while Credence stands uncertainly in the doorway. Finally he looks up and makes a beckoning motion.

“Well you’d better come in this time, at least.”

Credence nods and moves forward, gaze flicking around the room.

“What do you have for me to help with, sir?”

The other man walks around him to close the door, then turns and holds up the leaflet still in his hand. “Tell me something,” he says.

“Yes?”

He takes a few steps closer. “Do you believe all this?”

Credence jerks his head in surprise, shock drawing his gaze to the man’s face before he can shy himself away. “What do—it is the truth.”

“Right.” Another step. “You told me a lot about it last time. You spoke well. Well practiced. Did you mother teach it to you?”

“She—” Credence breaks off, tripping over his words. People ask him questions about what he hands out sometimes, but not like this. “She’s the one who teaches us all, about the danger that she’s unveiling.”

“Of course,” the other man replies, lightly. “But I’d like to know what you think.”

“I—I don’t have to think about the truth.”

“Of course.” There’s something in that light tone that makes Credence feel the other man doesn’t mean it at all. But his face isn’t derisive or mocking like some of the people on the street as he continues, “Do you want to know what I think?”

For a beat Credence doesn’t respond, unsure whether or not it’s a real question awaiting an answer. Twinges of fear squirm through him, ringed with confusion of _why is he asking, what does he want, will he tell Ma._ Only, as he continues to search the other man’s open face, he feels his nerves unclench.

“Yes, I do.”

Correct answer. The other man smiles, one that floods leisurely across his face, pleased with a sliver of a sharper warmth. “I think your mother is a very accomplished woman,” he says before his voice falls lower, in volume and pitch both. “But, I think there’s something different about you.”

Credence wants to say, _‘I know’._ He wants to say, _‘I’ve known for a long time and  she never has,’_ and, _‘how did you?’_ but he doesn’t, because he doesn’t need to. Because by now, he’s learnt to know the gaze of a man who wants him.

Instead he takes a step forward of his own, bringing them that hint too close for courtesy, and asks, “What do you believe, then?” His own voice doesn’t lower. He watches as that creeping gaze slips down from his eyes, and to his mouth.

“I believe I like you.”

And that’s enough.

“Have you been with a man before?” the other man asks against Credence’s lips as he guides them into his bedroom, quiet and coaxing.

“Yes,” Credence says. “Yes I have.”

The other man makes a sound of surprise at the reply, surprise but not displeasure.

He lets Credence be on top. Credence decides he likes it, setting the pace, palms resting on the shifting muscles of the other man’s chest and stomach. The bed is springed, and creaks in some low but finely obscene way as he steadily takes the other man in on his own time. At least until he finally finds himself flipped over onto his back with a growl of frustration and a gasp of both shock and pleasure from himself.

Afterwards, he lies on his stomach, cheek pillowed on his hands with the air from the half-open window drifting listlessly over his naked skin. The sheets still strewn to the side offer no cover as he whispers, “I don’t know what I believe.”

The other man stretches out beside him and reaches over toward a box of cigarettes on the small table by the bed. He pauses when Credence wrinkles his nose, then gives a fond sigh and lets his hand drop empty to Credence’s bare back.

“You don’t have to,” he replies. “Sometimes you don’t need to read what’s right and wrong in a book. Sometimes you can feel it for yourself.”

Credence frowns, not intending the disapproval that creeps into his voice when he says, “You don’t believe in God and His word?”

“Of course I believe in God. I believe that God leads us to do good and to love each other as Jesus did us all. I love my brother and his church and the work we do.” His hand moves idly, fingers trailing a light line down Credence’s spine. “But words are the tools of man, not God. While God loves, man hates, and each man who repeats God’s word has something different that he hates more than the others. But that doesn’t mean the ones who listen have to hear it.”

“You don’t hate sin?”

“I could hate many things, if I put my mind to it. Almost anything, in fact.” For a moment the other man’s expression draws up, turning sombre. “So I choose to hate the people who take from those who need it, and the people who think their amusement is more important than another’s pain. But I choose not to hate this.” Then his features soften again, deliberately, hand falling still and steady over Credence’s side. “And you shouldn’t either.”

Credence nods, and a moment later he pulls his eyes away. He doesn’t say that he doesn’t hate this, stopped asking himself about it a long time ago too. It’s everything else that he’s started to ask himself about now.

The other man cuts them an apple and a couple of soft slices of bread after they get dressed and says, “You know your sums, don’t you? I’ll write a note to your mother saying you helped me with the weekly accounts, and that I wouldn’t mind having you again next week.”

Credence lets his lips curl around his piece of the fruit just a little at the double meaning of the last part, juice sweet on his tongue. He’s gotten good at finding and making time for himself by now, weaving possibilities and half-truths around Ma and the girls, it’s different having someone else lying for him too.

He gets home late for dinner, but only a little. Ma glares and spends a while scrutinising the note, before finally telling him that there’s a little bread and boiled cabbage left. Modesty whispers to him over her plate that the bread is stale. It isn’t too stale. It still isn’t nearly as soft as the piece he’d had earlier.

They manage a few weeks before Ma has some unspecified break in relations with the other organisation, Credence listening silently when she informs him. A few days later, a street boy catches up to him as he’s leaving the church to find a new corner to hand out leaflets. He gives Credence a note written on a neat tear of paper before grinning toothily and running away, along with a single red apple. There isn’t anywhere Credence can keep something where he can be sure it won’t be found. He eat the apple swiftly and watches the note spin away on the breeze, small as it is, a fond goodbye in elegant handwriting that he recognises from envelopes and papers glimpsed around a cosy apartment too far for him to sneak to.

His name was Jonathon. Credence hopes he and his brother are doing well.  
 

—

  
Credence is twenty-one the first time he meets a wizard.

Things have been different the last few months, ever since the dark-haired lady attacked Ma not with a weapon but with something strange and bright and unreal, and no one had any idea what Credence was talking about every time he tried to mention it. He stops trying to mention it before long, tries not to think about it too much because he doesn’t know what happened and he feels like trying to understand it will lead him somewhere too great to follow.

Though Ma doesn’t somehow seem to remember the strange lady, it’s like something in her still knows enough to be angry. It’s gotten harder to find opportunities to go out, with her pushing every moment of his time into work for the Second Salemers’ cause and tightening her intolerance of his every step out of her exact expectations. It’s become more likely that Credence will get noticed, scolded, left with fresh track of lashes, and sometimes he wonders if it’s worth it. But then, there’s more and more other ways he displeases her anyway, mistakes and flaws that he doesn’t have to lie about to earn punishment.

He’s a little surprised when the well-dressed man he’d noticed watching him during the meeting comes up afterwards and asks for a leaflet. Not many people approach him, and the ones who do usually just treat him like the silent paper-bearer that he tries his best to be. No need to talk, address him, look at him. He’s even more surprised when the man follows when he ducks down an alley to avoid a particularly fervent gust of wind, and grabs his wrist.

Men have noticed the marks on Credence’s skin before. There are only a few that stay—Ma isn’t a brute, after all, never hits him with uncontrolled rage, always with cold, precise composure. There’s a divot over his left hip from one time she used the side with the buckle, easy enough to mistake for some small accident. A slightly raised line high on his back right thigh from a cut that had gone too deep, reopening as he walked and growing ugly as it refused to heal for weeks. A handful of silvery streaks that linger here and there across his palm or shoulders or legs. Most of the rest heal up with no scar if he gives them time. If he has the time to give, trying to line up his stolen moments of opportunity between Ma’s disappointment.

Some of the men who do see look uneasy when they do, some pretend they hadn’t.  Almost all of them let it pass without comment. Credence doesn’t mind, because it’s hardly like they can do anything about it.

Except this one can. This one does, with a hand passing through thin air and an itching tingle of warmth and the miracle of a sinner instead of a saint to gently nudge Credence’s world down the slope that it had been teetering over.

The witch—wizard—does more than talk to Credence. He tell him about incredible, unconceivable things, and he asks for help. There are touches too, a firm grip around Credence’s hands and forearms as he heals, a palm resting heavily on Credence’s back or shoulders, fingers trailing from cheek to neck. But though Credence wonders at first, the wizard doesn’t want him. Only cares about the child, and that’s okay too because it’s good to have something work on, work for amongst this unbalancing new definition of possibility.

In some way, it’s like his first time again. But instead of lust, the wizard is coaxing out something else entirely from inside him, something indescribable that has begun to stir much more recently. Awakened sometime around his initial brief glimpse of witches and magic and things hidden away.

His name, at least so he said, was Mister Graves.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

There’s a part of Percival’s mind which registers that he’s biting at his lower lip like an awkward teenager. It appears a counter-productive thing to worry over, however, as the reason for it is that the rest of his mind is focused on steadily fighting not to moan too loudly. Because honestly, he really isn’t a teenager anymore. 

It has, admittedly, been somewhat of a while for him, and he is currently being tended to by a mouth that very clearly knows exactly what to do with a man’s body. A half-voiced gasp escapes him in a throaty rumble and he sucks in a long breath to turn it into a real set of words, but whether some melange of startled confusion or a very half-hearted continuing protest he has yet to decide. Torn as he is, his brain happily resolves to continue debating and say neither.

He does have the presence of mind at least, eventually, to bypass the dispute when he feels the squirming heat in his abdomen begin to spike dangerously. He releases his lip from between his teeth in order to shape out a warning, but before he even manages to voice it the boy with the too-knowing tongue is already easing off. Apparently able to read the signals well enough in the twitch of Percival’s thighs and the tensing shift of his stomach under a deftly splayed hand.

Credence doesn’t look up after he pulls back, trailing his tongue almost idly across Percival’s stomach in a slow line until he’s dragged up with a groan that sounds like surrender. Percival feels the upwards curl of the boy’s lips against his own as he tastes them again, followed by the delicate forming of words whispered into his mouth.

“I want you.”

Percival groans again, and in one motion wraps an arm firmly around a narrow waist and flips them fluidly over at the same time he summons enough focus for a wandless vanishing spell. Credence gasps a little as he finds himself both on his back and nude in an instant. Percival pulls his arm free once more and slips the rest of the way out of his pants, sliding a hand down Credence’s flank to the curve of his hip in slightly clumsy direction as he narrows his concentration a second time.

A moment later Credence lets out a small squeak of shock, a shiver running all the way down his body at the sudden sensation. Percival can’t help his huff of amusement at the sound. It’s a complicated spell, actually, a sophisticated intertwining of magic for combined cleansing, lubrication, and relaxing. An advanced thing to cast wandless and wordless, but also generally the first spell of that calibre learnt by those of the interested persuasion. Perfected under the kindly guidance of a select group of seniors in the Ilvermorny dorms.

A flicker of uncertainty crosses Credence’s face when Percival moves to breach him with no other preparation. Percival gives him a small smile of reassurance, silently asking for trust as he pressed forward slowly, and watches the boy’s expression melt into pleased delight as he’s smoothly entered without pain. He also doesn’t miss the tinge of surprised wonder that comes with it.

As charming as Credence’s enchantment with the possibilities of magic usually is, Percival huffs again when he sees it now. And just for that he abandons his indulgent gentleness and pushes the rest of the way in with a snap of his hips, effectively replacing that awed distraction with a sharp twist of pleasure.

Credence doesn’t stay quiet as Percival begins moving in earnest, low moans and gasps that may as well have been screams breathed this close against his ear. It’s as not soft or sweet as he may have liked to make it, too intense for that, but honestly he’s a man who almost literally just looked down to find a pretty boy in his lap. One can’t reasonably expect finesse from him.

He takes Credence hard, driven on by the supreme lack of discouragement in the legs wrapping tight around his waist and the blunt nails pricking into the skin of his shoulders. He keeps his pace for as long as he can before he feels his endurance begin to give, shifting his weight then and raising himself up on one braced arm so he can reach down a hand. Credence comes first, crying out a bare instant before he clenches up around Percival and spills over his fist. Percival groans as he rides out the shuddering waves of the boy’s climax, own movements stuttering and seizing until he growls out something rough and deep in his throat and joins Credence in the fall.

They still together in the aftermath, falling limp against each other, panting into the same air. Percival takes a long moment before he collects himself enough to pull out and slump to his side on the mattress, rolling over onto his back and feeling his heart gradually settle back to its normal pace. Beside him, his beautiful, _remarkable_ boy sighs and stretches out, lithe and graceful. Completely bereft of the hunched cower that he still sometimes shrinks into when he stands, content and assured in his naked skin. Percival waves out a lazy hand for a cleaning spell and smiles when this sensation also draws a small noise of surprise.

The smile smooths away from his face as his questions begin to surface once more, not displeasing but still making his mind whirl as it slowly gets itself around the new development. Then one thought comes to him abruptly, that darkens his mood in a cold flash of dread.

He twists his head, meeting the boy’s eyes. His tone is subdued as he begins shakily, "Credence, was it, did you—”

Whatever was showing on his face was apparently enough to make clear the direction of his thoughts, and Credence is already sharply shaking his head. “No. Not him. Never.”

Percival relaxes again with a sudden relief so fervent it leaves him weak, eminently grateful for one thing that Grindelwald hadn’t used his face, and more, for. He feels warm fingers curl around his bicep as Credence shifts closer and curls into his side.

After a handful of seconds, Credence raises his head again and says in a quiet, confessional tone, “I did think about it, though, from the beginning.” When Percival stiffens, he runs a consoling hand across his chest and adds, “Just for one reason. The purely physical one.”

There’s a beat, Percival’s gaze snapping to Credence’s face, taking in the far too guileless expression for the few moments that it holds out before it turns blatantly coy. Then he narrows his eyes, huffing out a breath that’s a mix of surprise and disbelief as he mutters, “Little minx.”

Credence laughs, and Percival catches that gorgeous smile of his just briefly before he leans down. The kiss is wet and deep, lingering far too long and passionate for someone who’d just come off a round of mind-numbing sex. Only, pressed together skin to skin, thigh to hip, it’s also someone whom Percival can clearly feel isn’t yet done for the night.

He groans.

Percival Graves is, in addition, thirty eight years old, a reasonably intelligent man, and starting to wonder how much he’s in over his head taking up with a boy almost half his age who will quite possibly be the death of him.


End file.
